Sunday, April 3, 2011

We can tell this comic is an April Fool's joke because Megan is asking Randy to do something with her. This has never happened, and you were all FOOLED. It is doubly foolish, because in such a situation, Randy would never turn her down--this is his attempt at pretending that, in such circumstances, he would "play it cool."

But the joke is funny even if you are capable of accepting a fiction in which Randy has ever been asked out by Megan and/or where Randy is capable of turning her down. You see, some people dislike 3D movies because they give them a headache, and, when asked to attend, it is very plausible that they would say something very much like Randy said in the comic here.

If you are a master of words like Randy, you'll notice that "movies" does not appear in Randy's dialog in this comic! This is a quirk of human conversation, where people will often assume that a certain noun is implied and avoid repeating it endlessly, instead using pronouns or nonspecific nouns such as "stuff" to refer to them. Randy has noticed this, and, as he is a cunning linguist (sluuuuurp), he has decided that, since "3D stuff" theoretically refers to the entire world, it would be extremely hilarious if someone were to reject Megan's amorous advances to do things like ride bicycles by saying "I'm not into 3d stuff because it gives me a headache, GET IT LIKE 3D MOVIES???"

This was accompanied by some sort of script which drew a bunch of extraneous lines around the comic for some reason, which sort of but not really reacted when I moved my mouse around.

OMG, cancer is so sad that it makes even math sad! Sad! Having shown a sensitivity to human emotions, I can hope that maybe Megan will stop calling me a soulless aspie robot and will finally return my awkward sexual advances. Thank god aunt Jennie caught the cancer, or I never would have thought of this!

A couple of things to note with 881:1) Randall is referencing comic 55 in the title text.2) The graph is at 89% and 79% for 5 and 10, not 81% and 77%.3) The IV bag is MASSIVE, and apparently the person who needs it is lying on the ground.4) What are they sitting on?

Why would they use a splitter to go from one IV bag to two lines? Maybe the same reason they're using what looks like it has to be a 5gal bag. I guess Randy's trying to show the hospital euthanizing the patient by fluid overload?

CAPTCHA: Epeastr. Phenomena outside of easter that cause changes to the celebration of easter.

Where the hell are you taking that 881 is about cancer at all? All I see in this comic is:

1) A graph. Ha ha.2) A slanted table. That's Randall being "experimental", I suppose. Watch out, Randy, the angle might be too much for your fanbase!3) Some faux-nerdy/emo comment about SCIENCE, and an IV bag that's both huge and connected to nothing or no one.4) Two stick figures hugging. I'll give Randy the credit of giving the stick figures some substance instead of just drawing the lines crossing each other in a very jumbled mess like he did in the past... though, really, stick people hands are still creepy. Oh, yes, and this is supposed to be an "AWWWWW" panel or something.

So, first of all, no reference to cancer here. For all I know, it could be AIDS, swine flu, or measles. Second, while this strip is obviously not meant to be a joke, obviously, it still makes little to no sense. There's no point following from this sequence of panels. I still have no idea where you guys take it that this has anything to do with cancer, really. It sounds more like Randall is giving up on cold, hard science because it doesn't offer him any comfort anymore.

Which makes this comic an obvious hallucination. I mean, couple that with Megan actually reciprocating his feelings, and there you have it!

Really, I can't hate this badly enough because it doesn't go anywhere. This is the xkcd version of mopey Livejournal posts.

Doctors often don't share the data on chance of survival because statistics are really hard for people to grasp.

But usually it's the other way around, with seemingly tiny survival rates really meaning things like, "It usually goes undiagnosed for too long" or "Most people who get it are immunocompromised, and that drives up the mortality rate" or something like that.

77% chance to live at least 10 years is... well, it doesn't sound that bad to the layperson.

So is the idea of the comic that understanding statistics led him to conclude that a survival rate that actually sounds pretty good is actually much worse than it seems? That he might be hopeful at hearing relatively high numbers, but because he understands the math behind the numbers, it's actually much more grim than it seems?

@Mole - Five/ten year survival rates are stats used most extensively for cancer. Of course, it could be some sort of organ transplant or other disease/surgery, but it's a lot less likely. If he had written 'OMG CANCER SUCKS' somewhere on this, that would have made it a lot worse.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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